


Tai's Dying Day

by ArdentSingleton



Series: Taishiro [4]
Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Adventure tri.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 06:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6893767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArdentSingleton/pseuds/ArdentSingleton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taichi takes extreme measures to show Koushiro how important he is. Taishiro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tai's Dying Day

As he entered his apartment, Taichi Yagami could only think how brilliant he was. What’s more, he was certain that after everyone saw his most recent ‘crazy idea’, they’d all finally recognise his brilliance too.

“Oh my god. Tai, what have you done?!”

 Perhaps not.

 “You don’t like it, Hikari?”

 His sister, the supposed bringer of light, was far from subtle in her opinion of the change. He could see it in her eyes: bemusement. Maybe even disappointment? He wasn’t quite sure. It was true that the change was quite radical, and maybe he should’ve told her first, but the idea had just been so fantastic that he knew he had to act on it right away.

“It’s certainly... different...” Hikari trailed off, attempting to be tactful, “Have the others seen you yet?”

“Nope! You get to be the first to see the new and improved Yagami Taichi two-point-oh!” he proclaimed, enthusiastically.

“I see. And this brand new you will be unveiled at the picnic this afternoon?”

Taichi nodded, a wide grin on his face. Walking off to their bedroom, he grabbed his schoolbag and brought it back to the living room. Spilling the contents across the floor, he grabbed his homework assignment and got back to finishing it off: he had a few hours to spare, after all.

The assignment itself was a genealogy task. Taichi and his classmates had been told to construct a family tree showing several generations of their heritage, and for once he was actually interested in the work. It mostly meant searching through old photos and letters and junk he’d never really paid attention to, the miscellany of artefacts he’d just complained at his mother for making him sit through before. But now, looking through it all at his own pace, he was fascinated by it all. So it came almost as a shock when his sister came and told him they had to go.

“You ready, Tai?”

“Of course!” he responded, stuffing a piece of paper in his pocket and giving her an overly confident thumbs up. Hikari only raised her eyebrow in response, a kindly smirk on her face.

It was certainly true that he was eager for his friends to see his latest development. One friend in particular, if he were being honest. One very special, close friend who mattered more to him than he could ever put into words.

At the park, the group known as the Chosen Children (who had previously had to save the world from evil digital forces on multiple occasions) were meeting for a picnic. The sun was shining, and it had been mutually agreed amongst many of the friends that they should get together. A picnic had been decided on over many rounds of phone tag, with them all meeting at the park around one o’clock.

The first ones to arrive had been Yamato Ishida, his girlfriend Sora, his younger brother Takeru, and Takeru’s ‘honestly-just-a-friend’ Daisuke. Together they’d found a spot in the shade of a tree, and set up the picnic blanket. Yamato and Sora claimed their preferred spot while Daisuke led Takeru off to play some soccer, one-on-one. 

Within moments, Miyako and her boyfriend Ken had appeared and the two girls had started discussing the minutiae of their respective relationships. Yamato and Ken made polite small talk, but neither could pretend they had much in common with the other. It didn’t take long until Ken wandered off to join the other two similarly-aged boys in their soccer game. 

With his girlfriend preoccupied discussing elements of his personal life, Yamato was left sat on the edge of a blanket in the middle of the park, staring at his phone and split between wanting to avoid the conversation and wanting to avoid the soccer match that appeared to be his only other option. So the appearance of a distinct auburn tuft in the distance came as a big relief. Finally a male companion who wouldn’t ditch him for a black-and-white ball.

“Hey, Koushiro,” Yamato yelled at his distant friend, “we’re over here!” 

Meanwhile on the other side of the park, Hikari was about ready to burst into laughter. Taichi just glared at her.

“I can’t wait to see Yamato’s face when he sees you, Taichi.” 

“Yeah...” Tai mumbled, looking rather less certain than he had previously. Suddenly his brilliant plan was seeming a lot less well considered. But it was too late to back down now, his friends had already seen him coming. He would just have to brave it. The two of them continued walking towards the group.

“Hey guys look,” Yamato interrupted his girlfriend’s lament that her friend Mimi was in New York, “it’s... Taichi?”

“Hey guys,” Taichi said, trying hard to act normally, “what’s up?”

Miyako and Sora just stared at him, while Hikari again struggled to contain herself.

“What’s up?” Yamato practically yelled, “What the hell did you do this time, Taichi?”

Hikari couldn’t contain it any longer and promptly burst into laughter. The noise had, however, alerted the boys playing soccer, who were coming over to see what the matter was. As they rounded the tree, though, they stopped in their tracks. 

“Woah,” muttered Daisuke, “Taichi? When did you do that?” 

“This morning,” Taichi muttered, and snatched Takeru’s hat, adding, “give me that.”

As Taichi tried to pull the hat down over his hair, he didn’t notice another of his friends coming up behind him.

“Hey Koushiro!” Takeru greeted their friend cheerily, as most of the rest of the group remained transfixed on Taichi, who promptly spun around, his hair still poking out from underneath the stolen hat.

“Hey Takeru!” Koushiro started, then stopped and looked at the boy in front of him. “Tai? Is that your hat?”

“…yeah.”

“I see. I didn’t think you particularly liked hats.”

Taichi just stared at the ground awkwardly avoiding the other's gaze, when Hikari decided to chime in.

“I think you two need to talk,” she said, vaguely.

This only made Koushiro look even more confused.

“And I want my hat back, Taichi,” added Takeru.

Taichi emitted a loud groan and pulled the hat from his head. His hair sprang out in all directions from underneath, reforming its familiarly spiked tuft. Koushiro’s eyes widened as he saw Tai’s new look.

“C’mon,” Taichi muttered, grabbing Koushiro by the wrist and finding a park bench on which to sit.

They sat in silence, Koushiro waiting for an explanation and Taichi uncertain how to explain his actions. Eventually Koushiro decided he was going to have to actually ask the boy if he wanted more information. So he did.

“So... Tai... why exactly...?”

Tai sighed and leant forward in his seat. He paused, then looked toward his companion.

“Yesterday in class, Kou, you know how I got that family history assignment?”

Koushiro nodded.

“Well, when I was telling you about it at lunch, I got excited and you tried to share my interest, but…” Taichi paused, looking into his friend’s jet black eyes “you just seemed so sad, Kou. And you’re never sad about school work. It took me a moment, but I figured out why.”

Koushiro smiled sadly. “It just hit a nerve, Tai. As much as I’ve come to accept my adoptive parents as my own, I can’t deny there are moments when I feel...”

“...Alone,” Tai finished for him, “I know. But you shouldn’t.”

“I know, Tai. It’s just one of those things. It’s really no big deal. But I still don’t know why you’ve done this,” Koushiro responded, tugging on Taichi’s orange-tinted hair and trying to get the conversation back on more comfortable terrain.

Taichi grinned a big, goofy grin, and held out a folded scrap of paper. Koushiro took and scanned over the sheet - it seemed to be part of Taichi’s homework - before noticing something at the bottom of the page.

 “...me?"

 “I just wanted you to see that even though you might not have your birth parents, you still have a family. And that won’t change.”

 Koushiro’s eyes softened slightly.

“Plus this way we can be sure our offspring will have hair just like their mother!” Taichi grinned.

Koushiro couldn’t help but laugh at his boyfriend’s joke, bad as it was. “Tai, just because you dyed your hair that doesn’t change your genetics... and who says you’re not the mother, anyway?”

Tai pouted. “You think _I’m_ the mother?”  He stuck his tongue out. "We should get back to the others before they send out a search party though.”

“I concur. Iori and Jyou have probably arrived by now too.”

And with that, Taichi walked slowly back with Koushiro toward yet more unsuspecting friends, thinking that although the others might laugh about his new hair colour, it was worth it if it stopped Koushiro from feeling alone.


End file.
